[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
But what about regular abortions. The ones that happen to six week old or older embryos? Is that murder? Well OF COURSE IT IS. To think otherwise is ridiculous. To see this, one need only to admit that there will come a time that we will have the technology to keep tiny embryos alive outside the womb. A womb is simply a well design incubator. The child's physical destiny is determined at the time of conception. (And his consciousness, self, or soul, is determined a few days later.) Everyone agrees that delivering a six week premature baby and then killing it is murder (possibly homicide would be the better word).

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, 'homicide' would be the right word there. 'Murder' denotes an unlawful homicide. When people say that abortion is murder, they generally mean that it's a homicide that should be unlawful. That's a perfectly acceptable usage as well. But in the paragraph I quoted above, your use of 'murder' doesn't fit either of those definitions. Aborting a six-week-old fetus is not unlawful, nor would everybody agree that it should be.

That small nitpick notwithstanding, that is a very good essay on abortion.